Clintons host foundation fundraiser

Hillary and Bill Clinton sat in leather chairs on a stage and fielded questions from a room of about 150 people Friday night at their first joint appearance to raise money for the family foundation since she left the State Department.

A number of attendees said politics was a subtext, but the future of Hillary Clinton was never discussed, or asked about, during a question-and-answer session with the former first couple at the event at the Topping Rose House in the Hamptons, where they are spending part of August on vacation.

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The event was the first in a string of fundraisers the two will hold as they look to raise a $250 million endowment for the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation.

“It was a great event,” said former New York state Democratic Party Chairman Jay Jacobs, who attended and said there was no open discussion about politics.

Bill Clinton, he said, talked about the polarization in Washington, and either he or Hillary Clinton referenced the movie “Lincoln” as indicative of how there always has been fractured politics in the Capitol.

Bill Clinton opened with a joke about how he now, as a former president, gets to say what he wants, but the downside is that no one cares, according to an attendee. His wife, he implied, has the opposite problem: She has to be a bit more careful, but people want to hear what she has to say. It was the only hint of politics at play during the evening, other attendees said.

The foundation has become the main hitching post for Hillary Clinton during the period in which she decides whether to launch another presidential campaign, and a number of donors are well aware of that fact as they commit money.

But Friday night’s event was mostly filled with familiar faces.

Among the chairs for the event were longtime Clinton supporters and donors Alan Patricof and his wife, Susan; cosmetics executive Ron Perelman — who attendees said committed money but didn’t attend ; Liz Robbins and her husband, Doug Johnson, longtime friends of the Clintons who threw a party for them the night before; and Barbaralee Diamonstein. Also on the chairs list were Doug Band, Bill Clinton’s former counselor; his wife, Lily; and Band’s business partner, Declan Kelly, and his wife.

Michael Kempner, who recently hosted a meet-and-greet for the Ready for Hillary super PAC, and Ann Tenenbaum, who hosted a $25,000-a-couple fundraiser for the super PAC a few weeks ago, were listed as “co-chairs,” as was Bernard Schwartz and his wife.

In the crowd was designer Donna Karan, financier Marc Lasry, News Corp. executive and former New York Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and Rep. Nita Lowey. Democratic National Committee member Robert Zimmerman, a longtime Clinton supporter and bundler, was also there.

Huma Abedin, longtime aide of Hillary Clinton and wife of Anthony Weiner, who has been on an extended vacation from her role heading Clinton’s transition office, was also there, guests said.

The focus on the Clintons’ foundation work has intensified dramatically with the arrival of Hillary Clinton and with the establishment of Chelsea Clinton as the person who is the driving force in making the operation sustainable beyond her father’s life. The interest is primarily political, which has tended to frustrate Clinton aides who feel the work they do gets short shrift in coverage.

Throughout the event, the Clintons described themselves as in the “how-to” business, according to a guest, and discussed the role of non-governmental organizations. Bill Clinton talked about projects the Clinton Global Initiative has worked on.

The CGI partnerships, which were established initially as an initiative Band was primarily involved with, have received the most attention within the foundation’s work — a $20,000 registration fee to attend, in which Clinton has tended to pair companies with a problem to be solved.

The Starkey Hearing Foundation became one of them in 2010, and the executive director, Brady Forseth, recently joined Clinton on his trip to Africa.

“We have been able to do so much more through doors that have been opened” through Clinton’s involvement, Forseth recently told POLITICO of their work.

Their pledge has been making hundreds of thousands of hearing aids available in underdeveloped countries and maintaining sustainable care.